flames of war Archives - Page 25 of 42

Flames of War Street Barricades

I did eventually get a set of the Street Barricades that were released last February.

Couldn’t get one from my usual shops, so in the end I had to send off for a box. Even then it took a while to get here.

Within the box you get two identical street sections, one overturned Opel Blitz and one pile of barricade, both designed to fill the gaps in the street sections. All are made from resin.

These are very nice castings and lots of detail.

Before I started painting them I looked over these excellent painting guides from Battlefront.

I like how in the tutorial they have painted the truck as a civillian truck.

See the workbench feature on the Street Barricades.

Flames of War French Heavy Artillery Battery

This is a boxed set with parts to make four four 105/155mm C mle 1917 S guns with crew, Observer Rifle team, a Staff team and a Command Rifle team.

Having constructed the guns and put the crew on wooden sticks, the next stage was a white undercoat for the figures and the guns.

I also gave the guns a white undercoat.

I also sprayed the underneath of the guns with a Humbrol Dark Brown spray to add shadow.

French Heavy Artillery Battery

This is a boxed set with parts to make four four 105/155mm C mle 1917 S guns with crew, Observer Rifle team, a Staff team and a Command Rifle team.

I initially decided that I would make two of the guns as 105mm L mle 1913 S guns.

Here are the two 105mm L mle 1913 S guns, I am using road wheels rather than spoked on these.

Here are the two 155mm mle 1917 Howitzers.

The completed 105mm L mle 1913 S gun.

I was going to make the 155mm mle 1917 Howitzers with the provided spoked wheels, however after thinking and reflecting about it, I decided that I would make up all four as 105mm L mle 1913 S guns.

Flames of War German Armoured Train

Following on from my earlier post, we now have more details about the new Flames of War German Armoured Train.

There are four new models, the locomotive, an artillery wagon, an infantry wagon and a flak wagon.

I really do like this model and much prefer it over the Polish armoured train.

Wargames Factory Plastic 15mm German Infantry

Well it looks like another company is getting into the plastic 15mm models suitable for Flames of War or similar world war two games.

Wargames Factory who already make a significiant range of 1/56th and 28mm scale plastic miniatures are working on a range of 15mm sets in plastic. The first of which is Late War German Infantry.

Nothing has been announced about other boxed sets, but will be interesting to see what else that have planned.

French Heavy Artillery Battery

This is a boxed set with parts to make four four 105/155mm C mle 1917 S guns with crew, Observer Rifle team, a Staff team and a Command Rifle team.

I glued the crew and other sections to wooden sticks to make them easier to paint.

There are five crew for each gun.

Here is the Staff team.

Here is the Here is the Command Rifle team.

You also get a couple of prone infantry to use as the Observer Rifle team. These I based directly on the FoW plastic base.

See the full workbench feature on the French Heavy Artillery Battery.

Playing the game

Here are some photographs of a Flames of War game using my not quite finished, or not nearly finished German and British forces.

They are the opening shots of a game of Flames of War. Alas the models were only painted to a “basecoat” standard, normally I wouldn’t play a game with “unpainted” tanks, but still have some way to go with the models and we are still working out how to play the rules. The game consisted of a German armoured column being ambushed by British armour.

The few buildings were some Hovels’ ruins and some Hornby N Gauge buildings.

Basecoating the Flames of War Dingo

The Daimler Scout Car, known in service as the “Dingo” (after the Australian wild dog), was a British light fast 4WD reconnaissance vehicle also used in the liaison role during the Second World War.

The Flames of War blister comes with three of them. I gave the vehicles and the crew a white undercoat, I then gave them a basecoat of Warpaint British Armour.

The crew were given a basecoat of English Uniform (921).

See the full workbench feature on the British Daimler Dingo.

Hovels Ruins

I bought these ruins quite a few years ago. These ruins are in fact 1/200th scale ruins, though they seem to work well with 15mm Flames of War. I had painted these with a black undercoat and then drybrushed them. I also glued some name signs onto them, though I have partly removed them, not very well mind you. As a result I have decided to paint them again. I sprayed them with a Humbrol Dark Grey.

Flames of War Renault FT-17

The Renault FT or Automitrailleuse à chenilles Renault FT modèle 1917, inexactly known as the FT-17 or FT17, was a French light tank; it is among the most revolutionary and influential tank designs in history.

The FT was the first operational tank with an armament in a fully rotating turret, and its configuration with the turret on top, engine in the back and the driver in front became the conventional one, repeated in most tanks until today; at the time it was a revolutionary innovation.

France still had several thousand First World War Renault FT tanks in 1940. Over 500 of them were still in service in independent bataillons de chars de combat (BCC) tank battalions in the front lines. Although adequate for infantry support, they were totally outclassed by German tanks in a mobile battle.

It is one of my favourite tanks, I have always had a fondness for this little tank, probably as a result of making that Matchbox plastic kit of the Renault and the Char B1 when I was young.

As I am creating an Early War French army I got some of these little tanks for Flames of War.

The tanks were small in real life and were quite small in the 1:76th scale kit, so I am expecting quite a small tank for 15mm. Actually I was surprised by how small the Char B1 is compared to Late War tanks, I don’t know for some reason I thought the Char B1 was a “big” tank, well it might be “big” for Early War, but otherwise it is quite a thin small tank compared to the Cromwells and Panthers you find in 1944. It’s quite incredible the pace of technological change in tank design during the war in just a few years.

I was pleased with the amount of detail in the model.

I like the fact you get two turret variants.